The Problem With Top Graduates...

The government has been on about attracting more top graduates into teaching for a while now. They've offered bursaries (see here), expanded the remit of the teaching recruitment charity Teach First to allow it to recruit greater numbers (see here), and made various announcements that have been lapped up by the media of varying quality (Telegraph, Independent, Mirror, Daily Mail to link just a few). A simple search online will unearth hundreds more articles I have no doubt, if you can be bothered that is.

The requirement to actually have a qualification to teach in the state schools of England has been relaxed in the most favoured types of school for the Department for Education, namely academies and free schools. The qualification requirement has never been compulsory in private/public schools, the type of school that a high proportion of MPs attended, or in the case of my local MP, wish they'd attended. Now you may say that if it's worked in private and public schools, what's the problem? They get great results that state schools could get after all. It's a question of intake, student motivation and support from home that is a major difference my friends. Anyway, that's a separate point; what I wanted to cover is the myth regarding top graduates.

There are a few subjects that have been highlighted by DfE ministers and other MPs on programmes like Question Time that really ought to have top graduates teaching the youth of today; namely mathematics and science. You could throw "new subject" computer science into that mix too, as you are either very good at it and therefore probably did it at university; there is no middle ground with computer science: either you're brilliant or you're crap. I'm the latter.

At A Level and Degree I couldn't agree more that maths and science could do with being taught by top graduates, although they need not be the be all and end all. Teaching of those courses is to children who have chosen to take those subjects and already have an deep-seated interest in the subject. They not only want to know how to do something, they want to know why it works that way; something that a top graduate can explain with ease, whilst others would possibly have to do a little research. So, dear DfE and those in expensive suits in Westminster, feel free to attract top graduates for those posts, but don't disregard others. You will have to dangle numerous carrots in front of these high flyers to divert their attention from the lucrative careers that top mathematicians and scientists have traditionally entered. It might help if DfE press releases and various Ofsted employees didn't consistently criticise teachers in the media too. I digress again...

My main query is whether a top graduate really is the best type of person to teach maths and science to disinterested children who have no choice but to be there and just want to get the minimum grade in order to never have to sit through a lesson again? Unfortunately with a total lack of interest in the subject, the likelihood of achieving that grade is minimal. These students need to be taught in a different way. Empathy with the inability to understand a concept first time around is hugely helpful. A top graduate in their subject will invariably have found most, if not all of their subject pretty straightforward. The trouble is this means that our much lauded top graduates will get increasingly frustrated as their charges fail to grasp covalent bonds or simultaneous equations. A teacher who was not a top graduate probably won't have found everything easy, and can therefore understand the frustrations.

If you couple this lack of empathy for a  student's woes with a lack of any teacher training or qualification then the recipe is potentially disastrous. If there's one thing that my PGCE did teach me it was different strategies for dealing with classes, mainly through teaching placements admittedly, but without it I would have floundered even more than I actually did in my NQT year.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that top graduates couldn't empathise, they are just less likely to understand. So Mr Gove, DfE, Sir Michael and the various other political types who drone on and on about top graduates, they may not actually be the answer to all your problems!

Bandwagon, Here We Come

Back to school this week and we're met with a pep-talk from the head and deputy. And what a way to start the term! It seems that academy status isn't that far away for us, and probably all the other schools in the area. Nothing's been discussed with governors (like they'll argue - it might create some work for them) but the head seems to think it's a good idea, so therefore we'll almost certainly do it.

I've been in similar situations in my teaching career, when major decisions have been mooted. There is a "consultation" with staff, but if the findings don't support the proposal, the results are simply made up. I was at a school where they wanted to change the timetable from 5 lessons per day to 7. A questionnaire went out that was generally sent back showing little support for the change, but when the feedback was announced "lots of positives had been noted", although the head couldn't actually quote any at the time. I have since left the school, and so has the headteacher, and what has happened? You've guessed it; they've gone back to 5 lessons per day.

Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education has been quoted today as saying that those opposed to academies are "happy with failure" (click on this link to read the article: Here!), And all this despite opposition from teachers and unions, who actually know what they are talking about. In actual fact there are many perfectly understandable reasons why people are anti-academies:

1. Academies get extra money for 2 years and then go back to their original budget, meaning that any additional staff brought in potentially could lose their jobs, or those who are not the head's "cup of tea" will be "got rid of". You are then back to square one.
2. The above can happen because all the staff at the school/academy have their contracts changed and they can, in theory, be dismissed on the whim of the headteacher. Obviously the teacher would have to put a foot wrong, but job security is relatively low (compared to local authority schools), and with less people wishing to enter the profession, this is rarely good for the students, as the staff who replace those teachers deemed surplus to requirements are rarely better.
3. The students won't change, nor will the future intake, so just how do you raise standards? Clearly the teaching would need to improve, and the ability to offer staff extra money could help, but not all can change. Also the leadership needs to be strong and have a good vision for the place. The fact that the school has chosen to go to academy status, the currentt head probably has neither of these skills, so little with change if anything at all.
4. The schools who become academies can use their budget how they wish. That almost always means that those at the top award themselves more, meaning there's less for those who actually teach the children and less for resources for the students after the initial two years extra funding. The Oasis Academy in Salford is a prime example of this. If you were the head, wouldn't you be tempted to award yourself a pay rise? MPs do, so why not headteachers?
5. The school will have to be totally rebuilt (I'm not 100% sure why, but I presume it's to physically show a "new start"), which sounds great. But some schools don't have the space to build new buildings, and actually if the original buildings were servicable, then what a huge waste of money. Money that could have been used far more productively on teaching staff (to reduce class sizes, which is proven to improve standards) or to buy better equipment to make the students' learning more interesting to them (which has also been proven to raise standards). Buildings will make little or no difference.
6. Those who don't have a university degree and therefore not a teaching qualification would either lose their jobs or take huge drops in wages. You may think that this is a good thing as we need "qualified" people, but actually there are loads of these people who do superb work as Teaching Assistants or working with the more challenging members of the school's community. These invaluable people would be forced out of the profession. Why don't they get the necessary qualifications, you may ask? Could you live on nothing for 4 years in order to do that? Exactly.
7. If every school becomes an academy, as seems to be the wish of the coalition government, the money in the pot won't get any bigger, so everyone will get what they were getting before but with a staff who are far less happy with their lot, and that is bound to be reflected in their teaching. As for private firms ploughing money in - the economic climate would suggest that this is unlikely to happen.

Despite there being many minuses, all our head can see is the pound signs, so it will happen, backed by a toothless governing body.

Can't wait!